Tennessee Tech senior Goff ready for final season

Tennessee Tech senior Goff ready for final season

Former Columbia Central standout Tra'Darius Goff, a preseason first team All-OVC linebacker selection, speaks to the media during Monday's Ohio Valley Conference media day session in Nashville. (Photo by John Zwengel)

Tennessee Tech senior Goff ready for final season

Former Columbia Central standout Tra'Darius Goff, a preseason first team All-OVC linebacker selection, speaks to the media during Monday's Ohio Valley Conference media day session in Nashville. (Photo by John Zwengel)

Tennessee Tech senior Goff ready for final season

Tennessee Tech senior linebacker Tra'Darius Goff is the preseason pick for the All-OVC first team defense. On Monday, the former Columbia Central standout who was the offensive and defensive MVP of the Lions' 2010 state championship win met the press at the OVC Media Day session in Nashville. (Photo by correspondent John Zwengel)

NASHVILLE – Former Columbia Central standout Tra’Darius Goff has one more year of college football to play at Tennessee Tech and he plans on making the most of it.

“I know this is really my last guaranteed season to be on anybody’s roster so I’m really just going into the season giving my all every game, every play I’m out there,” Goff said.

In 2013, the Golden Eagle linebacker finished the year with 101 tackles, good for second in the Ohio Valley Conference along with 8.5 tackles for loss.

His senior year, Goff is focused on setting a standard of play for the young players to see.

“Really just show them by my actions about how I go hard and to show them that nothing is easy,” Goff said. “Our coaches tell us all the time everybody’s working hard now but that doesn’t guarantee anything. You have also got to have a mindset really. If you don’t have a mindset you are weak-minded.”

Having a strong mindset on the football field was something that Goff carried with him as a Lion playing prep ball at Central and something that caught the eye of Tech head coach Watson Brown who saw him play in Cookeville at the Class 5-A State Championship game in 2010.

“When I watched that state championship game when he was a senior in high school, he was the MVP of both sides of the ball. That just doesn’t happen,” Brown said. “Watching him play, I mean what a motor. He just goes and he goes and he goes. I think he carried it 30 times that night, led the team in tackles. We knew what we would get if we got him and we got him. That’s what he’s been. He’s a warhorse.”

As a senior at Columbia Central, Goff recorded more than 200 tackles while rushing for 26 touchdowns.

TTU’s warhorse is also working to help win his team another OVC Championship, a feat Tech hasn’t achieved since 2011 when Goff was a freshman.

“We just think the world of him,” Brown said. “When he came in as a freshman, he was a major factor in us winning the championship. It would be neat to get him another before he leaves. It’s not going to be easy but that would be the goal to try to get him another one before he gets out of Tennessee Tech.”

In 2011, the freshman Goff played in bits of all 11 games making his presence felt with 19 tackles, a sack and even a forced fumble against Iowa.

During his sophomore year in 2012, Tennessee Tech made the trip to Eugene, Ore. to face the Nike-clad Oregon Ducks on the third week of the season.

“It meant a lot,” Goff said. “It was fun, the atmosphere, all the fans and just being out there in Oregon. That was my first time going to Oregon and playing De’Anthony Thomas was fun too.”

Despite losing 63-14 to the Quack Attack, Goff was able to block an Oregon 25-yard field goal attempt in the second quarter.

Now staring at his final season, Goff is eying a special game on October 25 against OVC foe Jacksonville State.

“My freshman year when we won the conference championship, we beat them at their place,” Goff said of facing the Gamecocks. “We were down but in the fourth quarter we made a comeback and won at the end of the game. Ever since then, they have handed it to us so I’m really looking forward to going to Jacksonville State and playing them in their stadium.”

Tennessee Tech’s season opener at home against Kentucky Christian is nearly a month away and Golden Eagle senior linebacker Tra’Darius Goff will be ready to hunt the OVC title with his strong play.

“It would mean a lot to win the OVC with me being a senior,” Goff said. “I won it my freshman year coming in. Coming in on top and getting to leave on top. That would mean a lot.”

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